The Siege Against Tolkeen

There was a sick, wrenching crack, and the deputy's head twisted in a way that human heads were never meant to twist. The man made a little gurgling noise in the back of his throat as his lifeless corpse slumped to the ground. The servant of the Old Ones looked down at the dead body, and at the bodies of the sheriff and the other deputies. This was not going very well. Mortals were never very cooperative.

A laser shot rang out, and a beam of energy crashed into the back of the alien's head. The being felt a swift sensation of pain, not unlike that which a mortal receives when being singed by a candle. This elven frame was far too fragile, and the star-tempered armor left the head regrettably exposed. The alien turned, and saw half a dozen more mortals standing in the road. Apparently this town still had some living beings in it after all.

"All that I want are directions to Tolkeen," said the alien, beginning to lose its patience. "Give me a map, and I will leave you alone."

"Bite me, freak!" growled some odd D-Bee that looked like a living cactus. "We got armed men all over town gunning for you! You ain't walking out of here alive, never mind goin' to this Tolkeen place of yers. Open up, boys!"

Concealed settlers emerged from hiding places, rooftops, and doorways all over the place, their guns blazing. Most of the shots bounced harmlessly off of the armor, but a few painfully struck the head. A little cut opened up on the monster's forehead, and for the first time, it saw its elven blood. The alien growled in anger at the wound.

"Very well!" it cried, focusing its mental energies. "If you are unable to listen to reason, then I will find others who will!" The ground began to minutely shake, and little pebbles and chunks of dirt began to float up into the air. Every glass window in town explosively shattered.

"Give 'im hell!" cried the terrified cactus-man, unloading his E-Clip at the murderer.

"Give me hell?" chuckled the alien, as waves of mystical energy began to envelop the town and every wooden building burst into flames. "Ah, but I already own it." The entire town was surrounded by a pillar of blue energy, baking the flesh of the surviving inhabitants. That pillar then exploded, and the agonies of the mortals were cut short as their bodies were blown into vapor. The smoke cleared, and the alien intelligence was the only being left, hovering a few inches above the glass circle which would serve as Hopefield's eternal memorial.

Suddenly, the monster saw something that it was intrigued by. In the ruins of the old general store lay a tattered, blackened pamphlet labelled, "Erin Tarn's Maps of North America." The intelligence hovered over it, and picked it up. Tolkeen was conveniently marked. The alien intelligence flipped through the pages, quickly memorizing the information contained within, and then flew off at the speed of sound.

Perrin slowly walked towards the Tolkeen library, sadly watching a convoy of troop carriers pass through the streets. For the past couple of weeks, he'd been spending more and more of his free time at the library. Since in just a little bit of time the mighty Coalition States would be occupying the area, and the library would be either sealed away in the Emperor's vaults or bombed into a memory, he figured that he might as well get some use out of the place while he could. The books on philosophy, politics, and magic were all tepid, demon-influenced crap, of course, but there were a few gems mingled amongst the stones. Some of the novels he had read were pretty good. And there was a fascinating xenology section, containing books about everything from cute (yet deadly and hateful) little faeries to city-busting monstrosities hundreds of feet tall. Perrin wasn't a great reader, but he knew his letters.

Suddenly, the pilot's meditations were interrupted by a very loud beeping noise. Perrin turned, to see a spider-legged APC headed right at him! He hurled himself out of the street, very nearly landing in the path of a civilian car, and landed in a heap on the sidewalk. The APC continued by, not even slowing down.

"Hey, you crazy bastard!" screamed Perrin, flashing his middle fingers at the troop carrier. "You've got brakes, you know!"

"Ah, those military drivers are a bunch of lunatics," said some bizarre creature with a pair of goat-like horns emerging from its forehead and four spindly arms. The fact that the D-Bee was wearing a tweed suit and a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles only added to the weirdness. It offered one of its hands down to Perrin. The pilot, not wanting to arouse suspicion, resisted the urge to pull away, and allowed the monster to help him up.

"It's really a shame what the city's doing," said the D-Bee. "Not only do they close off access to the D-Gates in order to rift in soldiers from dozens of worlds, they give car keys to aliens who've never seen any vehicle that they didn't have to feed. One of those barbarians smashed into my flying carpet yesterday, and just sauntered away."

"They closed off the D-Gates?" asked Perrin, suddenly concerned. HFA spies working in that area should have told him about it by now. "But what about people who want to get out of Tolkeen before the solstice?"

"Oh, they're free to go," said the D-Bee. "As long as they don't mind travelling through CS blockades, forests full of snipers, and miles of minefields."

"Jeez. That's a lousy thing to do," said Perrin, as he continued on his way towards the library. Only once the goat-horned man with the four arms and the tweed suit was out of sight did the pilot realize that he had meant it. He had felt sympathy for the demons! How did that happen? The pilot still wanted to go through with the mission and devastate Tolkeen. He wanted that with all of his heart and soul! So how could he feel pity for these baby eating D-Bees?

The pilot looked out at the street, and saw another one of the armored personnel carriers. His heart suddenly burned with hatred. Then, he looked over at a tentacled D-Bee who was waiting at the crosswalk. Surprisingly, he couldn't find any loathing for this being. This was disturbing.

The pilot turned to his left, and he saw a red-suited city guardsmen walking by. Perrin was consumed by hate. He turned to his right, and felt no scorn for the bizarrely dressed mage whom he saw there. This was a problem for the savior of the Coalition States. He looked up at the pyramid, and at its orbiting crystals full of malevolence, and felt a profound doubt.

"Take that, you blood-sucking, baby-eating monsters!" cried out Donald Hartman, as the Mechanoid invasion forces gathered before him prepared for their charge. He began to unload his firearm at them, bringing down or crippling one of the machine-men every time he pulled the trigger. "Dan, you take out the base's weapons system while I hold these guys off!"

His companion began to fire at the distant base. However, Dan's aim had never been sharpened in any SAMAS training. Most of his shots harmlessly thudded into the thick armored walls of the fortress, and those that hit did not destroy the powerful energy cannons of the Mechanoid invaders "Gimme some help here!" Dan yelled, as the massive beam guns began to turn in their direction.

"I'm trying!" said Donald, bringing his gun to bear against the base. However, it was too little, too late. The Mechanoids fired their cannons, easily tearing through the armor of Earth's defenders and reducing their best weapons to piles of useless slag. The charge of the remaining robots ended all hope of saving the planet.

"Game over," the arcade machine said, in an infuriating feminine voice. Donald threw down his light gun in frustration.

"Dammit, Dan! We were on the last level, too!"

"Sorry, man. Those guns are hard to hit, though! And you'd been getting the best weapon power-ups throughout the game. You had a long range plasma cannon, with the energy crystal! All I had was a wimpy little variable frequency rifle."

"And a grenade launcher! You could've used that on the turrets."

"They were anti-personnel grenades. Those don't make a dent in any of the bosses. I should've held the line, while you took out the turrets."

"It's a moot point now that I've lost my credits. You want to go get a pizza or something?"

"I dunno. I'm kinda tired of pizza by now. Howzabout Mos Mell instead?"

"Never heard of it."

"Oh, it's great, man! It's seafood from some other dimension. See, there's an outer layer of skin, and that tastes a little like chicken. And inside the skin, there's this sauce... it's wicked good. Real spicy and filling. You oughta try it!"

"I guess so," said Hartman, as the two men left the dark, smoky arcade. "But you know, the last food I ate from another dimension, I was sitting on the toilet for three hours! You'd better not be trying to poison me with this stuff."

As they walked off, a slim, unhealthy looking man in nondescript clothing looked on. A quick scan with the cybernetic identifying systems in his eye recognized the black man as being Donald Hartman, wanted fugitive, terrorist, and war criminal. The policeman had been right after all. The slim man began to follow Hartman, knowing that there was a promotion in this for him if he played his cards right.

Next Chapter

By David Haendler.

Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998 David Haendler. All Rights Reserved.